Well, here they are - A selection of 'Photos of the day' from my trip to China.
Basically, I've chosen a photo form each day of my trip to show to y'all - it's not always the prettiest shot, or the most interesting one, but I've tried to include a mix of different styles and subjects - If was something in particular that you read about and wanted to see a picture of, leave a message or drop me an email and I'll see I've got.

Anyway, click here to go to see the slideshow - it's in chronological order, and you can scroll back and forth using the arrows at the top - additionally, if you click on any of the photos, I've included a short description of what you're looking at.

Well, that's just about it - thank y'all for following along with my adventures during my overseas, I had an amazing time and it was always good to know that you guys were reading along at home, so thanks.

Jono

Hey everyone - Sorry I didn't get a chance to get on the internet last night - I don't have the longest time on this computer here at the hostel, so I'll make a bit of a list of what I've done in the last couple of days.

Yesterday morning (I guess it's 2 days ago now), I got up, checked out of the hostel in Shanghai, and went out to do a bit of real antique/junk shop diving. None of this 'antique' street market stuff, I'm talking getting your hands a little dusty, pokey little shops, piles of old junk, and the good stuff all hidden in a corner behind a bunch of white porcelain Mao busts. So I headed out to a couple of places around town - a few were closed, what with it being the Lunar new year's eve, but I found a couple of nice spots. The rest of the day was spent travelling to various spots around the city, to various places I'd missed in the last week, and returning to a couple (no more fried dumplings though - they were closed :( )

My flight out of Pudong Airport in Shanghai left at 10:35, so got the light rail, then the metro train, then the MAGLEV! Which was very exciting - it's the fastest train in the entire world, and while it doesn't travel at top speed in the evenings (it only got to 300km/h :p), it still only took just over 8 minutes the travel the 30km from stop to stop (which by my reckoning, is an average speed of around 225km/h. After waiting a couple hours at the airport I hopped the plane and was on my way to HK.

And while on the plane, I saw a most incredible sight - So I was flying over China at midnight on the 17th of February - when the clocked ticked over into the Year of the Pig - and a traditional way of celebrating the new year is with fireworks - which can be bought at shops or streetside stalls - which means -everyone- sets of fireworks. And I was 30,000 feet in the air to see this happen - it was really spectacular to look out my window and see flashes of light reflecting off the clouds all the way to the horizon - I even saw some actually going off, which is quite cool from above rather than the usual point of view below the action.

After such a spectacular show, I arrived at HK airport at 1:15 in the morning - not wanting to into town in the middle of the night, I found some unused seats and bedded down - caught a few hours of sleep, explored the nearly deserted airport, then at 7AM, took the bus into Kowloon.

After dropping off my luggage at the Hostel, I walked the empty streets of Kowloon for a while (Lunar New Year's morning in HK, think Christmas morning at home), headed across to the island and came back to the hostel for a nap.

After a short, refreshing sleep, I headed out into the now largely business as usual city of HK, and made my way down the the New Year's parade route.... It wasn't until I got there that I realised how much I really don't like parades - I got there at 7 for an 8 O'clock start - and waited and hour and a half for the first float. standing in the second row (no barrier to lean on :p), it was another 15 minutes before the 2nd float came along (I think that there might've been a fire - all these fire trucks rushed past, but I couldn't see where they went), then they started coming pretty regularly - I stayed for most of the time, came back to Mong Kok to trawl the night markets, then came back and fell into bed.

Well, that was my 2 days - I'm just about to check out of the hostel, take a bit of time to go across to the island one last time, then head back to the airport and my plane home!

I promise a post with pictures sometime later this week.

'til then!

Jono

Hooray, I'm posting from inside a train station!
3 cheers for free internet terminals.

Well, I got to HK just fine after a day of flitting back and forth across Shanghai yesterday, managed to catch a cople of hours sleep in the terminal, then headed back into the big city.

Everythings very quiet right now, being the first day of the lunar new year, so I'm just taking a bit of time to wander before I can check into my hostel, probably have a bit of a nap, then head of to the new year parade!
With any luck, I'll also get some non-train related internet time to do a more comprehensive blog of the last couple days too.

'til then!

Jono

Friday, February 16th

Alright, today I had pencilled in a wander in Shanghai's Old Town, including the Yuyuan Gardens, and a couple of antique markets.

Setting off at around 10:30 this morning, I took the train to People's Square, then walked down to the Old Town. Now, my impression of this area were that it would be a kind of untouched look into the city's past, and while this is true in part (narrow streets of old-style houses, roadside vegetable markets etc), there's clearly change afoot in the Old Town. While the whole region has been set aside by the Shanghai municipal council as a heritage area, there's still various types of development kinda nibbling away at the edges - apartment blocks, new roads being built, houses being knocked down (as I was walking past, which was interesting, but a little bit sad - watching an old place without a front wall, people inside going at it with sledgehammers).

Yuyuan Gardens, my first stop, took a bit of finding - I found the traditional chinese palatial architecture (you know the type - white walls, black tiled roofs curved up at the edges etc) easily enough (it kinda dominates over the surrounding warren of streets and alleyways), but then had trouble finding my way in. I walked almost right the way around the base of the walls before eventually finding the main entrance to the Yuyuan Gardens.

And boy are they a stunner! originally laid out in the 14th century for a Ming Dynasty official (though damaged and refurbished a number of times since), these 2 hectares of traditional Chinese gardens are really quite astounding. The place is a bit of a tourist haven, and there were a few tour guides with coloured flags leading their groups around, but it's easy to find a bit of peace and quiet in a place like this. Full of ornamental lakes, Koi ponds, traditional pavilions (pavilia? :p) and rock gardens, it's everything you'd imagine from a Chinese garden. Unfortunately, the overcast sky and a bit of drizzle meant that what pictures I took didn't come out to well, but it really is an astonishingly beautiful place, and I spent well over an hour exploring the various nooks and crannies.

Once I was done in the gardens, I made my way out to the real tourist joint - in the area around the gardens, they've built a whole complex of modern buildings in the traditional Ming Dynasty style, and filled them to the brim with souvenir merchants, jewellery shops and food stores (there's even a McDonalds - and a Starbucks). But not all is lost in this land of expensive trinkets - I did have a very good lunch. Again with the dumplings, but this time smaller and steamed. My Lonely Planet guide recommended this place, but I hadn't particularly planned on going there - but after seeing the line for take-away (long line = a good thing) and the prices (Y10 for 16 (16!) little steamed dumplings), I figured why not. After a bit of a wait, I got my hands on a very cheap, very delicious, very warming lunch (especially good in the drizzle).

Next stop was a couple of antuque markets, which I headed off to, haggled a little bit, bought a couple of souvenirs, realised how much I hate haggling, and figured out that 'antique' is pretty much a euphemism for 'new stuff that looks old'. At any rate, I headed back to the old town via the fish, bird and insect market (crickets in a box, 5 yuan! - don't worry mum, I didn't buy one - I promise not to bring any live animals home with me) and what appeared to be the electronics, whitegoods and leather shoes market, did a bit more poking around in souvenier shops, then headed back to the hostel.

I'm gonna go down to Nanjing Rd again tonight to pick up a couple of things, but I just wanted to give y'all a heads up - Blog updates will be a bit iffy between now and when I get back on the 20th - I leave Shanghai late tomorrow, and arrive very early in the morning of the 18th in HK. I'll probably update sometime that day (Sunday), and then possibly not at all until I get back.

so 'til next time.

Jono

Thursday, February 15th,

Hey all - Probably a somewhat short entry today, not because I didn't get up to much today, but rather because it's quite late, and I've got another big day tomorrow.

So, today I'd pencilled in Xujiahui, Jing'an and Nanjing rd, and I got around to all of them today, plus quite a bit more.

Taking the trusty light rail to Shanghai stadium in the city's south, I walked North to Xujiahui, a business district whose origins lie in the jesuit settlement there in the mid 19th century. I got around to a few of the sights, including the church down there, as well asthe library. I also happened to stumble across a little park with an interesting story to it. So I walked into a park in the area, and noticed a bunch of statues, and an artficial grassy set of mounds at one end - I thought it was interesting, and took a few pictures, then continued on - it wasn't until I was leaving the park that I read that these mounds are in fact the last resting place of a Ming dynasty patriotic scholar, dead for almost 375 years.... so, um, I was snapping away at the poor dude's grave.

Moving on, I was struck by the apartment buildings in Xujiahui - they all seem to want to do something to distinguish themselves, I saw one with what looked suspiciously like a telescope observatory (you know, those giant domes) on top, and another otherwise normal looking apartment block under construction, which had what appeared to be an ancient buddhist temple on top.... it's all a little bit wierd for my tastes.

Leaving Xujiahui, I took the metro to Jing'an, then walked north through the suburbs to the Jade Buddah temple - this temple/tourist attraction (complete with coke vending machines) is also an impressive place of worship, and while I didn't take a look at the eponymous Buddah statue, I wandered for a while through the impressive halls and courtyards of the temple. Next I headed even further North, to where - my guidebook informed me - I could find a colledction of art galleries etc by the Suzhou river - I began to worry when the road seemed distinctly industrial, but the place I was looking for was there, so I poked around a couple of nice galleries, then headed back south.

After a bit of exploring in Jing'an, I pushed Eastward, toward Shanghai's shopping district, which also happens to be home to some of its most impressive architecture. Back behind the Bund, there's a wealth of beautiful old buildings, mostly erected in the 1930s, Shanghai's colonial heyday, and the helpful 'heritage architecture' plaques give some nice facts and figures on many of the important sites throughout the city.

Next, I headed onto Nanjing Road proper, the Neon-lit, department store lined, people-choked pedestrian mall that is, I'm told, the biggest shopping street in all of China. Alot of the stuff there was of little interest to me, but I did wander through various stores and shopping malls.

I also had an encounter with the rather... 'unique' laws of the land when I went to use an internet cafe just off Nanjing Rd proper. Apparently, any foreigners wishing to use the internet in China (or at least, use it at an internet cafe) must have their passport scanned in order to prevent unlawful internet activity by foreign visitors..... Of course, I didn't have my passport on me, it's not the sort of thing I like to just carry around in my pocket (and even if I did, I'm not sure I'd want to have it scanned into some random computer system), and despite my offering up my driver's license as an alternative... no dice, I was turned away Internet-less (which is why this update is so late, I had to wait for a computer to be free here at the hostel).

After that strange encounter, I was just about to head back to the hostel when I dropped into a food market near Renmin square, and had my first encounter with local food. I saw a sign for fried dumplings, and going over to investigate, discovered a small stall inside the marketplace, packed with about 8 employees at once, making and selling fried dumplings on the spot. Luckily, there wasn't exactly much choice on the menu (dumplings, dumplings or dumplings), so I was able to just kinda join the queue, lay down my money (Y3.50 for 4 good sized dumplings!), grab the food and go. And man are these things good - real simple stuff, just dough, filled with a pork mince mixture, folded up, scattered with sesame seeds and fried on a massive flat metal dish with about 100 other dumplings. A recipe for an amazing taste - I'm in the area tomorrow, so I reckon I'll be back for more.

Well, that was the summary version of my rather eventful day, hope y'all enjoyed! tune in tomorrow for tales of my adventures in the Old City.

'til next time,

Jono

Wednesday, February 14th

French Concession

Well, today I put aside some time to wander Shanghai's French Concession area, which, I'm glad to report, is a beautiful area. But before I get into all that, a bit of a history lesson.

Back in the mid 19th century, a bunch of factors came together to turn Shanghai from a tiny fishing village into the biggest trade port in the China. After the British won the Opium war of 1842, they established an international settlement, with the French in turn creating the French Concession - these areas acted like little territories of the countries in question - so Shanghai's French Concession is filled with french influenced architecture dating from between the 1800s and the 1930s.

My first stop in the Concession was the hundred year old Fuxing park. it's a very pleasant, quite European kinda park, with the exception of the big stone statue of Marx and Engels (who, admittedly, were European themselves - but not the kinda Europeans that were into building tree-lined streets and 19th century architecture). Additionally, like many of the other parks I've seen here in Shanghai, Fuxing Park has a set of children's carnival rides in the middle - I didn't go on the bumper cars, but I've gotta admit, I was sorely tempted.

Next stope was Xintiandi, an upscale shopping area (nothing special about that, there's a lot of them in this city) housed in restored Shikumen - Shikumen, which literally means "Stone Gate", is an architectural fusion of European and Chinese styles, but here they've been renovated into coffee shops, botique clothes stores, fancy restaurants and other things that I can barely afford to walk past, much less patronise - So I satisfied by self with wandering around taking photos. Until, that is, I came to my next destination.

The Site Of The First National Congress Of The Chinese Communist Party
Sorry, I just thought that title needed capitals - clearly this is a big place for the Communist party. Housed inside one of the Xintiandi Shikumen, the building is detailed in red (You would expect no less) and is a sort of monument to all things communism. Not knowing much about National Congresses, Chinese Communist Parties, or the sites thereof, I paid my 3 Yuan entry fee (The cheapest museum I've been to so far - see kids, communism -does- work!) and went for a wander. Actually going inside was, in fact, a somewhat intimidating experience. There were uniformed guards standing everywhere, and I felt very self conscious, so I was careful to look respectful the whole time. The main building is essentially an exercise in selective historical recollection, housing a small collection of artifacts of various Chinese revolutions - swords, guns, flags, letters etc etc, all acoompanied by signboards extolling the virtues of this or that Chinese revolutionary. Interesting stuff, but I could've done without the propoganda. The most interesting thing there was a recreation of the first national congress, with all of the attendees perfectly cast in wax, seated around a table, looking suitably revolutionary. I would've taken a picture (it really was an incredibly lifelike scene - think a communist Madame Tussauds), but, despite the signs at the entrance (which said no flash photography), the scary guard man made it clear that photos were a nono the minute I reached for my camera. After browsing through the rest of the exhibition, I took a look at the actual room in which the congress took place, walked right past the souvenier store (seriously, souveniers? What would Marx and Engels say?) and then back out into the streets of the French Concession.

Wandering slowly Eastward, I passed the former residence of Dr Sun Yatsen (another famous chinese revolutionary, albeit from one revolution previous to the First National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party revolution - boy, I bet the one time VCE Revolutions history students are having a field day with all these famous revolutionaries - a lot of it tends to go over my head), and a very pretty Russian Orthdox Church (which is now a very pretty restaurant :p), a few expat bars (they say Shanghai has 100,000 expat residences, and they tend to live, work and party together - I guess it must be a bit like Chinatown is to us) and up to one of the city's top shopping strips, Central Huaihai road.

I had intended to go to the Xiangyang market, touted in my guidebook as home to a wealth of counterfeit, knock-off and pirated goods of various descriptions - but when I got there, I found a giant construction site..... apparently the market has been knocked down (Though it appears that many of the tenants have stuck around - I lost count of the number of times I heard the phrase "WatchbagDVD!" while walking through part of town) - I don't know where I gonna go for my knockoff goods now (actually, I do - i'm going there on Friday :p).

After that experience of how fast things change in Shanghai (and how infrequently Lonely Planet publish their guides - This is a January 2006 edition, and believe me, I'm compiling a list of errors/inaccuracies in it :p), I grabbed some lunch, and set off for the nearest park - and got another lesson on how fast this place is changing. Alright, so I grab lunch at a bakery, and I wanna sit down somewhere to eat - so I look at my map, and see a park just down the road - excellent, I'll go there. Excpet that the park is now a high rise office tower. Alright, scratch that, let's look for another park - Here's one - sure, it's about a km down the road, but I figure I'll take a nice leisurly walk down there - it's a pretty part of town after all. So I walk down to the other park and guess what - no park. This one's been turned into what a sign assures me is a 'model quarter', a kind of gated community with a bunch of nice apartment buildings. So I ended up eating my lunch while walking down the street. Oh well.

On the way back to the Hostel, I stopped in the Zhongshang park area, to check out the massive shopping centre they've got going there. now, I think I've mentioned a couple of times that my trip into the city entails a transfer from light rail to the metro - well Zhongshang park, and the new Cloud Nine shopping centre (Cloud Nine is a big department store) is where I transfer - it's also the location of the Carrefour hypermarket (like a combination of a Kmart and a supermarket) where I bought the awful tasting doughnut a couple of days ago.
Anyway, I took a nose around in this 11 floor (9 above ground, 2 below) shopping centre, and I've gotta say, it's a bit unreal. It's obviously brand new, and not everything is finished yet - and I went in there during the day, so the place was empty - so I was walking around this huge empty space, where there were about 4 times as many employees as customers, and where numerous otu of action escalators disappear, apparently into nowhere - it was a very surreal experience, I felt like I was in one of those post-apocalyptic movies, I kept expecting zombies to come shambling around the corner.

At any rate, I had a very full and exciting day today, and tomorrow looks like being just as much fun, I've pencilled in some more of the olden suburbs of Shanghai (this time in the British area), plus a tour of China's biggest shopping road, Nanjing East road in the evening - wish me luck!

'til next time,

Jono

Tuesday, February 13th.

Another day, another set of adventures in foreign places. Today I headed to the cultural centre of Shanghai (which, due to this city's unique layout, is in a different place to the economic centre, which in turn is seperate from the historical centre, geographical centre, commercial centre etc etc.), Renmin (AKA "People's") Square/Park.

Taking the light rail then subway in (today I waited until -after- the rush hour, after experiencing the public transport system at peak capacity yesterday), I hopped off at Renmin Square station. Now, back in the colonial days, this area was in fact a horse racing track, but has been transformed into a park and a large public square, with a variety of museums, concert halls, government offices and and around.

Renmin Park is very nice, it's a rare (relatively) peacful spot in the cacophany of Shanghai, with a pretty ornamental lake, lawns (not for walking on!), and all of the other accoutrements that go with a public park. Once I'd nosed around the park a little, I made my way across Renmin Square (and its resident population of incredibly fat, breadcrumb fed pigeons) to the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall.

After paying the 40 Yuan entry fee, I headed on into the incredible Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. The first couple of levels are mostly history - they've got a really interesting photo collection from the early 20th century, as well as some amazing before and after shots showing how much the place has changed just in the last 20 odd years. They also have a 'multimedia experience', which is code for 'history film projected onto a screen, except that when it rains on the screen, little nozzles in the roof spray water on your head'. Which is annoying.
On the 2nd level, there was (strangely enough), an exhibition of oil paintings from contemporary Russian artists, which was good - I don't think I'd been to any 'paintings hanging on a wall' type galleries on my trip thusfar.
But the 3rd level was the real treat. Let me give you a little background first. So Shanghai, like many cities around the world, is ringed by a set of freeways. This is the main built-up area of Shanghai, and it's growing incredibly fast. I mentioned how, back in 1990, Pudong was farmland, right? And now it's home to some of the tallest structures in the world - that's how quickly basically the entire city is growing right now. Shanghai are hosting a World Exposition in 2010, and they've got biiiiiiig plans. So on the 3rd floor, they have a scale model of Shanghai - The whole thing - or at least everything inside the ring of freeways which encircle much of the city. This thing is -massive-. Apparently it covers 800 square metres (so, think roughly 30 * 30 metres). But here's the kicker - this isn't Shanghai today, this is the vision for the future of Shanghai, so you can look at any spot within the city, and see what the plan is for it in 10 to 15 years time. Apparently the Hostel I'm staying at is gonna be a block of flats. Which is nice to know.
Other than the giant model, they also have a number of displays on various aspects of the city and its development - Pudong airport, the Suzhou River, etc etc. Additionally, they have a 360 degree showreel of the city's future (So, you go into this round room, and they project on the walls all around, so it's like you're flying through this computer generated Shanghai of the future).
All in all, I spent almost 2 hours in the Planning Exhibition Hall - of course, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but for me, it was an incredible experience.

Once I was finished there, I popped down to a bakery for lunch, then took a walk down western Nanjing road, just taking in the sights of the city. And I've gotta say, the architects in Shanghai sure do a mean line in scary skyscrapers. I mean, they're not all scary. Some are beautiful, some are ugly, some are boring, but an unusually large number bring to mind adjectives such as "Imposing", "Brooding" and "Foreboding". I've gotta say, they're mighty impressive things.

So after a bit of an architectural tour (more of that tomorrow too, I'm heading for the French Concession district) of the city, I hopped the train back to the hostel to do some washing :p

Well, that's about it for today, so 'til next time.

Jono

Monday, February 12th.

Here I am for another daily report on life in Shanghai! Today I was able to see some of the city's most famous sights, and had a heck of a lot of fun while I was at it.

First stop this morning was the Bund. The Bund, for those wondering, is a row of beautiful buildings stretching for around 4km along the eastern bank of Shanghai's Huangpu river - dating from the late 19th and early 20th century, these beautiful old places were built by various European banks and institutions when Shanghai was a centre of trade for the whole of China. A walk along this strip took me past all manner of structures, including what I've heard described as the "Orwellian" Broaway Mansions, what was once the tallest building between Cairo and San Francisco, and wierdest of all, the "Monument Tower to the People's Heroes", a peculiarly communist structure, with 3 angled pillars coming together at their tip, a carved frescoe around the base and..... an art gallery inside the base. It strikes me as peculiarly Shanghai to be selling paintings literally -inside- a monumental communist structure. At any rate, it was a pleasant trip, and a thoroughly enjoyable dip into Shanghai's past.

And with that, my next target was Shanghai's spectacular future. In 1990, the government decided that the area East of the Huangpu river, Pudong (literally "river east") would be developed as part of China's huge economic growth campaign. 17 years later, and Pudong (and particularly the area directly across from the Bund, Lujiazui) is a kind of futuristic cityscape - nothing there is more than 15 years old, and while there are some real beauties - The Jin Mao Tower, the under construction Shanghai World Financial Centre, and those buildings that are in Mission Impossible 3, but there are also some real stinkers - I mentioned the Oriental Pearl yesterday, and that's probably the worst of the lot - it's supposed to look like a gigantic string of pearls, butI've never know any pearls that are silver and bright pink (seriously, I'm talking, fluoro, hot pink). Plus, raw, unpainted concrete isn't exactly futuristic. Apparently the views from the observation decks (there are 3 at various levels) are amazing, but the pricing is ridiculous - from 100 Yuan for all 3 levels, down to 70 for only the lower pearl, and there's a more economical alternative down the road - but I'll get to that later.

One funny thing about Lujiazui is that it's incredibly pedestrian unfriendly - essentially the area is a series of huge commercial towers - but they're not all concentrated together like you find in most cities, instead they're spread out and divided by a series of wide, wide roads which criss-cross the place. And sometimes, there are no pedestrian lights at all(not that they help, I think that, like in America, you can right turn on a red light - and apparently honking as you go into a turn is a valid substitute for looking out for pedestrians :p) - at one point, I wanted to get to the other side of this major thoroughfare, and I swear, it took my 5 minutes to walk this huge circle just to get there. :p

But back to the observation decks - Jin Mao Tower, currently the 4th tallest building in the world (just pipping Hong Kong's 2IFC, which I went up inside about a week ago) has an incredible one on the 88th floor - 340 metres above the ground, making it one of the highest in the world. So I rocked up to Jin Mao at around 4:30, with the intention to stick around and watch the sun go down. Again, the Lonely Planet guide gave me a bum steer (I'm gonna compile a list for delivery to Lonely Planet on arrival back home) and said the price was 50 Yuan to get to the top, but I was more than happy to pay the 70 and head on up. Plus, I got a voucher that told me that my admission entitled me to a free pearl on reaching the top - which made me wonder what the catch was, but I headed up to the top either way. The view from the 88th floor is incredible, even though it was terribly smoggy and visibility was probably only a dozen or so kilometres - the buildings in Puxi (West of the river) were getting lost in a sea of smog - it's really an incredible city.

BTW, turns out the 'free pearl' deal was totally legit! I got to the top, and there was this counter set up there, and I watched the lady pry open and oyster and hand over this little pink pearl (not the same colour as the oriental pearl :p). So now I have a pearl. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do with it, but it's a nice memento all the same.

another amazing thing about the Jin Mao Tower is that it houses the highest hotel in the world - the Shanghai Grand Hyatt. The Grand Hyatt also has a gigantic atrium - over 30 stories high, from the 56th floor right to the tip fo the building - and you can look all the way down the centre of it from the observation deck, which is rather vertiginous. The final incredible thing about Jin Mao is actually the building next door - the Shanghai World Financial Centre. Started in 1997 - before the Jin Mao was even finished, the SWFC's construction was halted by the big Asian economic crisis, but restarted again a couple of years ago. It's gonna be 100 storeys tall and over 490 metres tall, and literally just across the road from the Jin Mao - which means that right now, the top of it is almost exactly on the level with the observation deck - you can literally watch the construction work happening across there as it goes up. Anyway, I spent about an hour and a half at the observation deck, got some -very- cool photos, and came back down in the Shanghai night.

Well, that was the long and short of my day, tune in tomorrow for, with any luck, my adventures in Renmin Square, the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall and Renmin Park

Sunday, February 11th.

Wow, so here I am in crazy, crazy 'ole Shanghai. Today was spent acclimatising myself to the surroundings etc, so this is gonna be a less chronological account than usual.

Well, one of the interesting things that I hadn't really thought about - they drive on the right side of the road (that is, not the left side, no- oh, forget it) in Mainland China. A fact I actually didn't notice until about 15 minutes into the bus ride last night, but what can I say, I had bigger fish to fry at the time. Still on the roads, there's a heck of a lot of bicycles and little scooter type vehicles buzzing around the place here - and they seem to think that they're both cars and pedestrians, riding on either the road or the pavement depending on which is more convenient.

The Hostel I'm staying at seems really good. They don't really have single rooms, only doubles and dorms, so before I left, I booked a double room with toilet and shower, and I'm glad I did. The room is massive (maybe just by comparison with the one I just left in HK), and right in the front corner of the triangular shaped building - toilet and shower are separate from each other (again, I'm easily impressed by being able to shower without getting the toilet wet, given where I've been staying the previous 10 days :p), air conditioning in the room (good, as it's quite cool here atm), TV, phone etc - It's almost more like a hotel room than a hostel, though for some reason, it has the single hardest mattress I've ever slept on. Either way, accomodations are very nice, and the place itself has a real hostel feel to it.

So, getting up this morning (a little later than usual, I was dead beat after yesterday's late night), I decided to take a stroll the couple of kilometres down to the nearest Metro Station at Zhongshan Park (There's a light rail that goes right past the hostel, which is a quicker way of connecting to the metro, but I felt like the walk), and began to realise what a funny city I'd found myself in.

So Shanghai, by Chinese standards, is a rich city - second only to HK in all of China. But like everywhere else in the world, and especially in developing countries like China, the gap between rich and poor is -big-. And so Shanghai is going through a stage of growth where the city can seem a bit all over the place - First of all, there are slum areas, with self-built mud brick dwellings that appear to be being knocked down at a rate of knots. Then there are vast tracts of communist style concrete apartment blocks (at this point, to avoid getting this site blocked by the Chinese Internet Police (look them up, they really exist), I think I'm supposed to talk here about how glorious communism is :p). After that, there are the tacky apartments and suburban style houses housing the kinda upper middle class types. And right at the top is the contemporary architecture, which runs the gamut from elegant and beautiful to... well, the Oriental Pearl Tower. And that's not even mentioning The Bund (British Colonial) and the French Concession (You guess :p) Shanghai doesn't really have a single 'identity' as a city, but in a lot of ways, it's more interesting for it - you never know what you're just around the corner from - heck, this evening, I was just walking along a shopping street and there was a -canal-. Wierd stuff.

On another note, I know it's a terribly soft target, but someone really needs to organise for some bilingual people with a really good grasp of the english language to start writing signs, packaging etc etc over here. I don't want to harp on about the issue because, to be honest, I only speak 1 language, so it'd be rather hypocritical of me to start ragging on people for getting English phrases wrong every once in a while, but when the tourist sign in Nanjing Rd, one of your city's biggest tourist attractions, claims that Shanghai is "An International Metropolitan.", you've gotta look into who's doing your translations.

Anyway, all up I had a fairly quiet one today - took a trip down to Nanjing Rd in order to get my head around the public transport situation, and otherwise just generally checked out the neighbourhood, but tomorrow I'm getting up to a little more - probably go hit the Bund early, maybe check out the Old Town, then with any luck, take a trip up the Jin Mao Building, China's tallest as the sun is setting. Wish me luck!

'til tomorrow.

Jono

alright, so I lied to you all - I am posting a blog for today - This is just gonna be a short one (12:30AM = tiredness), but boy was it an eventful day.

In the morning, after packing up all my stuff and checking out of the hostel in HK, I took a walk down Nathan Road, hung out in Kowloon Park for a while, then took a Ferry across to Central - while there, I took a last trip on the Mid-levels escalators before coming back down and catching the train back to Mong Kok. I grabbed my stuff, hopped on a bus, then, after a bit of a wait at the incredible Hong Kong International Airport, hopped on a plane to Shanghai.

The plane ride was pretty good, only a couple of hours long, and the flight was very sparsely populated (I guess there were less than 50 people in total on the plane). Arriving in Pudong, I had a very confusing time getting to my Hostel.

First of all, apparently there aren't any ATMs in the public area of Pudong International Airport, Shanghai. Which is real nice - after walking right past one on the way through immigration. Anyway, I had around $300HK, so I changed that to Yuan (minus Y50 commission, but whatever), and hopped on the Airport bus number 6 - with a fairly scary conductor lady, who wouldn't let me put my bags in the section underneath the bus. Anyway, I was dumped at the end of the route in Zhongshang park, where I proceeded to communicate in mime with a taxi driver (though I have learned one Mandarin phrase by heart already - "I don't speak mandarin"), who dropped me off fairly close to my hostel - at which point I broke out the map and made my way the couple of blocks to Le Tour Shanghai.

I've got an incredibly nice double room here, and I'm off there now to sleep.

'night all!

Jono

Friday, February the 9th.

Alright, so my last full day in Hong Kong, and true to my word, it was a grab-bag of various things that I'd missed out on over the course of the last 10 days or so.

So my first task for today was to head out to Sheung Wan. Now, nearly every day that I've been here in HK, I've heard someone say "Sheung Wan". Admittedly, that's because it's the last stop on one end of the Island MTR line, but still it sounded like an interesting place, so I decided to head down there and check it out. Sheung Wan is one of the older parts of HK, and while it hasn't been spared the same constant re-building that's gone on everywhere else in the city, it has retained a certain amount of its old identity. Back when Hong Kong was a newly acquired British territory, Sheung Wan was a densely populated part of town which functioned as the city's very own Chinatown. With all of the chinese residents, certain businesses grew up in Sheung Wan that remain part of the area to this day.

One such business is herbal medicine. Now, I don't think I've mentioned this before, but here in Hong Kong (and throughout China, I would guess), there's an odd combination of traditional and Western medicine - pharmacies sell regular, packaged up drugs just as you'd expect them to, but they also have a wide variety of herbs, dried goods and traditional remedies, which are used both medicinally, but also in general cooking. And if you're looking for such things, Sheung Wan is the place to be. Walking past shop after shop of these type of places, I was amazed at the range of things that they sell. It ranges from the mundane (dried mushrooms, cashews, cured meats) to the wierd (whole dried starfish?) to the bizzare ("I swear, that stuff looks like cow dung.") and the incomprehensible ("I swear that stuff is steel wool"). But the sights and the smells are exciting - if not always appetising.

Once I had taken a wander through Sheung Wan, I headed back to Central MTR station, and to Sai Wan Ho, on almost the opposite end of the island. What took me all the way out there? Other than curiosity (and the subway :p), I went to visit the Hong Kong Film Archive. After a bit of walking around (all of the tourist attractions in HK are very well signed, but if you stray off the path a little, you have to kinda backtrack to wherever you saw the last pink coloured signpost), I got to the film archive and had a poke around their exhibition, which was all about set design in film. Some interesting stuff there, though admittedly, it's no ACMI. After half an hour or so I set off from the Film Archive, walking alongside the harbour through the very pleasant Quarry Bay Park, then hopped on a train back to Central (did you know that I've travelled on the MTR 16 times since Monday? You get these bonus points every time you travel, though as far as I can tell, the only thing you can spend them on at the moment are free red packets for the Lunar New Year, which I don't really need). At any rate, I hopped off the train at Central to do a little photography in and around the Business district there - all of the photos I've taken in the area previously have been kinda incidental to whatever else I was doing at the time, and there were a few things I specifically wanted to take some photos of.

Anyway, I saw something -very- interesting while wandering around the place this afternoon. As you may know, Hong Kong is home to some -super- rich people - 18 billionaires live in the city, putting it behind only New York, LA, Moscow and London in that respect. And I think I saw one of them today.

So I was crossing the road across from Exchange Place (home of the Hang Seng stock exchange) and I saw a Rolls Royce. Ok, no big surprise there, luxury cars are nothing special in this city. Sure, a Rolls is astep above a Mercedes or BMW, but there's a few of them rolling around. But here's the kicker. The license plate of this particular chauffered Rolls Royce? "HK 1". Now that's impressive. So who has enough clout in this town to get the number plate HK 1? I decided to stick around and find out. after a few minutes of waiting, an older looking man comes along, surrounded by 3 well dressed guys (personal assistants? Bodyguards?), they all hop in the car and in drives away - as does the dark tinted Mercedes Benz which has been sitting behind the Rolls the whole time. I still don't know who this guy is, but either way he was a real big fish.

After that little bit of excitment, I hopped another train back to Kowloon to do a bit of market-trawling and orgainses my stuff, ready to leave for Shanghai tomorrow!

Just a note, as my plane leaves just before 7 tomorrow evening, and doesn't arrive in Shanghai until a quarter past 9, I'm unlikely to get the chance to update the blog tomorrow - I'm not sure what the internet situation will be like on that end, either, so expect an update 2 days from now, not tomorrow evening as per usual.

Until then!

Jono

Thursday, February 8th.

Hey again, I'm back for another report on my comings and goings in Hong Kong.

Started my day this morning with a phone call home, which I could do now that I've got a decent phone card - anyway, it was nice to hear a familiar voice at the other end of the line (thanks mum!), and to check in with everyone back there.

Ay any rate, I headed off a little later than usual this morning, on my way out to Lantau Island and the giant Buddah. When I got to the ferry terminal in Central, I had a bit of a wait, then headed off on the half hour ferry ride to Mui Wo, aka Silvermine Bay. From Mui Wo I hopped straight on across Lantau bus to Ngong Ping, the location of the Po Lin Buddhist Monastery responsible for the Tian Tan Giant Buddah Statue. Confused yet? so am I. :p

So Lantau island is in fact the largest island in Hong Kong (followed by Hong Kong and Lamma islands), and is incredibly hilly - Ngong Ping is on a plateau high up in the hills of Lantau, but the attractions there - the Po Lin Monastery, Tian Tan Buddah Statue, Ngong Ping Village (a 'recreated traditional village', think Sovereign Hill, but without the Gold Prospectors) and the Ngong Ping Waste Treatment Information Centre (seriously!) attract thousands of visitors every day - the roads up there are narrow and winding, so they've recently built a massive Skyrail from just outside the airport, right the way up the mountain. Point of all that being, there are thousands of tourists in Ngong Ping. It's a bit surreal visiting a buddhist monastery with vending machines around every corner.

At any rate, I paid my HK$23 and made my way up the stairs to the Tian Tan Buddah Statue. And believe me, this thing is is -big- 28 (I think - maybe it's 23) metres tall and made of Bronze, it sits on a 3 storey pedestal and has views in all directions. It's relatively recent (finished in 1989), but it houses some pretty ancient artifacts. Including 2 sacred Buddhist Relics.
Now, let me explain the relics, but understand that everything I know about Buddhism comes from visiting temples and reading imperfect english translations of signs at the base of a gigantic bronze statue. Anyway, apparently, when Buddah was 80 something years old, he decided that he was sone enlightening the world, so he went up to some mountain, gave his last lesson, then laid down and died. When he was cremated, his body exploded into 84,000 tiny coloured stone fragments the size of grains of rice, which were promptly scattered around the world - The Po Lin monastery obtained 2 such relics from Sri Lanka, and they're underneath a ornate glass jar at the base of the giant Buddah statue. At least, I think they are - you can't get close enough to the jar to actually see whats inside, but a photo next to it shows 2 small kinda rock shaped things on a red cushion that I assume are said relics inside their jar. Again, apologies to any Buddhists(though I don't -think- I have any Buddhist readers) if my explanations are horribly inaccurate.

The Buddah itself is quite spectacular - it's kinda hard to say much about a giant statue, but I can assure you that it's very impressive in person (Or is that 'in deity'? :p)

Once I'd seen the huge Buddah on the Hill, I dropped by the Monastery itself, which was also teeming with tourists, then headed back off the hill (I didn't bother with the village or sewerage information centre). This time, I took the bus to Tung Chung, which is the area I saw when I first got off the plane, with the massive apartment buildings at the base of the massive hills. The Bus ride was spectacular, as we drove up the steep slope on one side of the mountains in the island's centre, then down the other side (they're currently expanding the currently very narrow (as in, one bus in either direction narrow) road, so it was slow going). Tung Chung itself is like airport worker central, so not too much interesting there. At any rate, I got on the train at Tung Chung and headed back to Mong Kok.

This afternoon, I walked down the length of Nathan Road, from my Hostel right to the Star Ferry terminal, then caught the ferry across to Wan Chai, where I explored the fascinating back streets for a while, and later this evening, I'm going to watch the symphony of Lights Show again, but this time from the island side for a different perspective on the whole thing.

Only a couple more days in Hong Kong, so I'm trying to do all the little bits and pieces that I missed out on before now, and tomorrow, as my last full day in HK before I leave for Shanghai, will probably involve a lot of travelling back and forth to various places, visiting markets etc etc.

'til then!

Jono

Wednesday February 7th:

See how I've changed the format up on y'all! Just keeping you on your toes.

Alright, so on with today's adventures.

I decided last night that I didn't really feel like visiting the giant buddah on Lantau island today - I've done a lot of getting away from it all in the last few days, but today I felt like getting back amongst the hustle and bustle. So I made my way to the island, with the intention of exploring the streets and sights of Wan Chai. I began by going to check out the Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention centre - you might've seen pictures of it, it's the wierd spaceship looking building that juts out into the harbour - where the handover of powe from Britain to China occured in 1997. I wasn't a big fan of the building itself from afar, but from close up, it's quite impressive - the shapes and patterns are very pretty. Additionally, they've got a couple of terribly ugly statues out the front, one is the 'Golden Bauhinia', a 6 metres high, gold plated statue of...... Hong Kong's national (territiorial? Special Administrative Regional?) flower. Apparently they're big on their Bauhinia around here. The other statue is a massive black obelisk with some kind of flame on top, erected 2 years after the handover, informing us how well it all wnet and how awesome the Chinese government is.

Anyway, I also saw some filming going on while at the convention centre - a young couple walking along the waterfront there - and it made me think about the ridiculous number of Cantonese soaps that are on TV over here - I'm kinda suprised that I haven't seen any filming previously - of the 12 or 13 channels I get on the TV in my room, it seems that at any one time, at least 5 of them are required to be playing a soap opera - it's quite fun to watch when you have no idea what's going on - you can even make up your own stories and dialogues (There you go, an insight into how I spend my evenings in Hong Kong :p).

At around 10 past 11, I headed off, on my way to scope out the Noonday gun. Now, the noonday gun is a small cannon on the waterfront in Causeway bay, which is fired at noon every day of the year. The tradition was started over 150 years ago, when the shipping company Jardine used to salute the departure of its owner from the port by firing a gun - but a british officer, new to Hong Kong, was none to happy about this when a shot was fired across the bow of his ship, so he ordered that Jardine fire a shot once every day, at noon, as a way of keeping time in the then tiny colony of Hong Kong. Anyway, I made my way across to Causeway Bay, had quite some trouble finding the gun (you've gotta go into a hotel car park, then through an underground tunnel and back up again in order to cross the massive road that separates the gun from, well, basically the rest of the world.) and arrived with about 10 minutes to spare. Anyway, the guy went up and fired the gun (a smalled area is gated off until after the firing, when it's opened for half an hour each day), and I took a very cool series of photos, including one just at the moment of firing (By the way, I've decided that I'm gonna post a 'best of' of the photos I've taken once I get back home, so keep an eye on the blog after I return for all the photo-ey goodness), then went and took a look at the gun (which isn't the original - they replaced the 6 pound gun with a 3 pounder after noise complaints in the 60s), then continued on.

Taking a very nice walk through the back streets of Causeway Bay and Wan Chai, I worked my through to the Hopewell Centre - a huge, 66 story cylindrical building with a revolving restaurant at the top. Now, I found that the Hopwell was interesting for a couple of reasons - first of all, it's set pretty far back towards the hills, relative to the other tall buildings in the area. This means that the Hopwell centre has 2 entrances on 2 different levels - not a huge thing, heck we have something similar (albeit at a much smaller scale :p) at my place. But here's the thing. Hopewell's front entrance is on the Ground floor. It's rear entrance? The 17th floor. Yes, the 17th floor. The slope is so steep that there's 17 floors worth of hill between the back and the front entrance of the building. Pretty impressive if you ask me. The other exciting thing about Hopwell is an observation elevator, which ferries people up and down along the outside of the building between the 17th and 55th floors. Which makes for some -very- spectacular views.

Returning to Kowloon, I dropped by the massive Union Square project - a construction site more than anything at the moment, in a couple of years, it'll be home to HK's tallest building (at almost 500m).

Anyway, that's all I got for tonight, hope all is well over there, look forward to hearing from y'all.

Ok, time for the day 7 update!Today I travelled out to Lamma, the third biggest island in the territory (after Lantau and HK island) and had an very pleasant time.

I got myself down to the ferry piers at Central at 10:30, fortuitously just in time for a ferry (otherwise I'd've been waiting around for an hour), so I swiped my Octopus card and hopped on. The boat travelled around the western end of the island, then swung south towards Lamma. It docked at the island's largest village, Yung Shue Wan. Now, when I say largest, I don't mean large. In fact, the whole island of Lamma is home to only a few thousand people. I'm told that buildings over 3 stories are prohibited, and there are nearly no cars on the island. Which is good, because there are nearly no roads. In fact, the main street of Yung Shue Wan is only a couple of metres wide, and goods are transported around on these incredibly narrow motorised carts (think a cross between an ATV and a ute). Lamma is, like Shek O, home to a significant expat population - house prices are cheaper, and it's well out of the hustle and bustle of the city. But unlike Shek O, Yung Shue Wan's expats don't build themselves massive houses on the hill, but rather have created a funny kind of community feel to the town - apparently the spot is particularly popular with expat artists, musicians and other creative types, which you get a feel for from the atmosphere of the town.

From Yung Shue Wan, I set off for Sok Kwu Wan, which is the other ferry terminus on the island. The walk from the one town to the other was a leisurely hour and a half, through a couple of villages (apparently Chow Yun Fat grew up here), along a beach and then over the hills. The views were very nice, especially of the power station.

Wait, what?

Yeah, a power station. For some reason, there's a power station on Lamma island. I'm not sure if it's just there to supply the island (If so, they're using up a hell of a lot of electricity, it's a bloody massive thing) or if it sends power out to the rest of HK too, but it dominates much of the island - in fact, as the ferry pulls into Yung Shue Wan, you see the tops of the 3 massive cooling towers rising eerily above the wooded hills on one side of the harbour. Admittedly, there's been a power station there since 1890, so no-one's exactly surprised, but it seems like a strange place for it. In other electricity generating news, Lamma also has a windmill. One single wind power generator. you wonder why they bother with it really, I dunno, maybe the hippy residents of the island get their electricity from the windmill, and the rest of Hong Kong uses the Coal plant. Either way, it's all rather strange.

Another rather strange thing about Lamma can be found closer to Sok Kwu Wan - the kamikaze grottoes. Several caves (which you're not allowed to enter, as evidenced by the single 'no entry' sign posted at the entrance to each cave - and nothing else... it's almost like they're daring you to disobey them, but I managed to control myself.) are carved into the hillside near the coast just outside of town. Apparently the Japanese set up a naval base here after they conquered HK in 1941 (I think it was 1941). Anyway, when the war went bad for them, they started carving these caves into the side of the hill. Apparently they planned to hide speedboats in the caves, and when the enemy fleet arrived, use them as kamikaze weapons to destroy the incoming boats. Luckily, the war ended before any of that came to pass, but the caves are still there.

Sok Kwu Wan itself is another 'seafood restaurant' town, set up for the big weekend crowds that come and go on the ferry, with a row of restaurants lining the harbourside. Anyway, I hung around in town for about half an hour before hopping on the 2PM ferry back to Central.

This evening I headed north to Sham Shui Po and the Apliu street flea market and Golden plaza computer market (I went there once before, but it was later in the evening, so the flea market was mostly closed). Anyway, the flea market gave me the opportunity to practice my haggling skills - I'm not very good :( I knocked one guy down a whopping A$1.60 from 60 to 50 HK$ (He was like 'final price' and I panicked. And another dude wanted 50, I offered him 20, he laughed at me so I walked away. Yuck. I don't like haggling.

Not sure what I'll be up to tomorrow, I'd pencilled in Lantau Island and the giant Buddah that's there, but I'm not sure I feel like making the hike. maybe I'll go check out Wan Chai. I guess I'll see what I feel when I get up tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm off for some noodles, back tomorrow!

Alright, day 6!

Well, today, I was all set to go to the South side of HK Island today, so I got up, had some breakfast and trucked off to the Island (I also took the opportunity to take the other ferry route, to Wan Chai, which I hadn't tried before). Unfortunately, the buses I wanted left from Central, not Wan Chai (oops!), so I took the train back to the bus terminal at central and caught the bus out to Stanley - it's a wonderfully scenic ride (seems everything is in this city), and I had a nice view of the outlying islands on the way in. I got to Stanley at around 11:30, but didn't stay long - it wasn't really my thing - it's all a bit sanitised, and there's nothing really exiciting to see- there's a touristy market, some touristy shops and a pleasant beach - and that's about it in Stanley. One attraction that is worthwhile in the town is the rebuilt Murray House, which was moved from Central when they built the HSBC building back in the 80s.

Anyway, I headed back up to Kowloon for the afternoon, with a couple of places in mind - Shep Kip Mei Estate and Kowloon Walled City park.

But first, a bit of history on Shep Kip Mei - Shep Kip Mei is a district in northern Kowloon, which up until the 1950s, was a poor area housing thousands of people. In the 50s (can't remember which year), there was a massive fire in Shep Kip Mei, and 50,000 people lost their homes. In a rush to house all of these now homeless residents, the government built a whole estate, quick and on the cheap. over 50 years later, there's no-one living in the Shep Kip Mei estate anymore - all of the people who survived the fire have slowly grown old and died.

So I had read about this particular part of Kowloon in a Hong Kong history book, and had read elsewhere that it had been turned into a sort of museum, where young people could go to learn about Hong Kong's past. So I hopped of the subway at Shep Kip Mei station, followed the signs to the estate and found..... a great big patch of dirt - apparently the government have decided to get rid of Shep Kip Mei estate, and are knocking down the apartment blocks one by one. Walking a little further on, but a little disappointed at missing out on this museum, I came upon the last 2 standing blocks of Shep Kip Mei estate - old, utilitarian, 50s era cheap looking rows of apartments. These blocks are appropriately being used for an exhibition showcasing trades and skills of Hong Kong residents that are becoming obsolete in the territory's new 'knowledge economy'. Anyway, I was speaking to the guy from the group running the exhibition, and he told me that these last few blocks of apartments were themselves knocked down shortly after their exhibition finishes in late March. A kinda fitting irony, really.

Once finished in Shep Kip Mei, I made my way Eastward towards Kowloon Walled City park.Now Kowloon Walled City is another interesting place - when the Chinese handed over ownership of the New Territories of Hong Kong, for a 99 year lease in 1897, the agreement stated that a fort inside the territory would remain under Chinese control, to aknowledge Chinese ownership of the New Territories - problem was, when the British went to take control of their new aquisitions, they were opposed by the civilian population. The British used this as a pretext to kick the Chinese troops out of the walled city, but didn't send any troops of their own in - Kowloon Walled City became a kind of no-man's land, with both country's asserting ownership. over the next century, disputes would occasionally arise over the area (The British wanted to turn it into a park), but they would always be put off for something more important - the boxer rebellion in 1899 gave the Chinese more important things to think about, and World War 2 made the whole thing kinda moot when the Japanese took over the whole lot. So through the 20th century, a kind of high rise slum rose up in the Walled City (though the japanese tore the actual wall down in the early 1940s), with prostitution, gambling and crime running wild. Eventually, once it became clear that they were getting the whole territory back in 1997 anyway, the Chinese backed down, and in the early 90s, the british tore the whole thing down and made it a park.And a lovely park it is - built in traditional chinese garden style, it incorporates a rebuilt fort from the 19th century, a bonsai garden, and a pretty ornamental lake. To be honest, I was a little disappointed that they didn't leave -any- of the 20th century buildings, or even their remnants - it's kinda like they decided to restore forget a whole 100 years of the site's history, terrible as it was, and go right back to the Qin dynasty fort for their historical element - but I guess that's the way it's done. And it is a terribly nice park.

Anyway, once I was done in Kowloon City, I headed down to Tsim Sha Tsui (The southern tip of Kowloon peninsula) to do a bit of wandering/browsing of shops, then walked back up to Mong Kok for dinner - I'm getting the hang of pointing and gesticulating at things on the menu like I had to do last night, but I was lucky enough to be served at the japanese fast food place by a girl that spoke good english - 'cos my cantonese - not so good :p I'm still trying to work up the nerve to buy something from the stand on the corner shopfront of my building - they seem to cook up anything and everything, stick it on a skewer and sell it to people in need of a snack while doing their late night shopping. from dim-sims to frankfurts to tofu to what looks a heck of a lot like baby octopus legs, they've got everything - it looks terribly appealing, and it's very popular with the locals.Anyway, I'm gonna be on my way - I think I'm gonna head out to Lamma Island tomorrow, but I felt some spits of rain outside just now, so I'll see what the weather decides to do first. Until tomorrow!

Day Five:

Today I was getting away from all the hustle and bustle once again, this time by way of a hike in the hills of Hong Kong island. I had a slightly later start than usual, but got out of my room by 10AM, and grabbed some supplies from 7/11. On a bit of a tangent, I must note here how much I -love- the Octopus card. For those of you not in the know, an octopus card is a smart card originally used by the public transport system in Hong Kong - Whenever you need to catch a train, bus, minibus, ferry or even taxi, you just place your Octopus card on the machine for a second and it deducts the fare from an amount you have stored on the card - they have automatic recharge machines, and you don't even need to place the card right on the reader - like most people, I keep mine in my wallet and just swipe it over the machine - much better than sticking a ticket in the machine. But here's the real kicker - the octopus system has been taken up by a bunch of stores, so you can use your octopus all over the place - the 2 big convenience store chains, the 2 major supermarkets, several fast food chains all accept Octopus - You could almost live your entire life in HK just on the Octopus - it's a rather brilliant system, all up.

But back to that walk - I took the subway to the Eastern end of HK island (using my Octopus card), and then a bus (Using my Octo- you get the idea) to the start of the Dragon's Backbone walk - it's part of the 50 km Island trail, but this section only takes a couple of hours, and is a spectacular walk along a ridge of hills which are said to resemble the backbone of a dragon. Having not seen a dragon myself, I wasn't about to argue. Anyway, it's a really pleasant trail, with great views of both the ocean and the hills of HK island, plus some of Hong Kong's many outlying islands.

While walking along the ridge, I came upon several guys assembling a remote-control glider. Wanting to see this thing in action, I stuck around and waited while they got the balance right, checked the controls, changed the ballast, checked the controls again, unscrewed some stuff, checked the controls, screwed some stuff back in etc etc etc. I never knew it took so damn long to prepare a model glider for flight - seriously, I've seen real planes that are ready quicker than that thing. So after waiting around for about 20 minutes, I gave up and was walking away when I heard people getting excited behind me - I ran back just in time to see the machine being launched! anyway, the guys controlling it put on a good show, doing loop-the-loops, barrel rolls and buzzing around over our heads - amazingly, all completely unpowered, no motor, no propellor, just gliding around the place.

Once that was done, I headed back down the trail, then took a bus (Using m- alright, alright!) down to the seaside town of Shek O. In some ways, it was similar to Sai Kung, which I visited yesterday, a tangle of streets down by the sea with a lot of foreigners - but it's actually quite different - Shek O doesn't have the fishing/seafood industry of Sai Kung, but it does appear to be home to a large expat population - walking around the on the town's seaside (which has an overabundance of luxury cars and big (by HK standards) houses), I barely heard a word of Cantonese - it was either English, French, Spanish or Italian.

Just out of Shek O there's a small outcrop joined by a bridge to the town, so I walked down in that direction - turn out that Shek O is a real hub for a few things:

1) Washed up Hong Kong rubbish - the rock beach there is covered in shoes, polystyrene, plastic bottles and even a computer monitor.
2) Teenagers playing at being army men - This was wierd. I saw some young guys hanging out on the rocks at one end of the beach, and noticed they were all wearing an army uniform, and carrying fake guns (the kind that go CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK when you pull the trigger). Later on, one of them was looking around with a pair of binoculars - I honestly don't know what the deal is here.
3)People being followed around by a gaggle of photographers - This was even wierder than the army men. So I was walking down to this beach, and I saw some random pretty girl sitting on the rocks being photographed by, like, 7 photographers. So I'm like 'Ok, photo shoot - that's no surprise' - but then there's this guy pretending to climb a rock, and he's got 3 or 4 guys around him, snapping away - then I see this lady with her child, and about 4 photographers, and later on, I saw another girl posing for photos for like 6 people at a time - I couldn't (and still can't) figure it out - these people had all different equipment, but all of it was real good stuff (Canon and Nikon SLRs with -expensive- lenses) and there were just so many of them. The closest I came to a solution was that maybe it was a photography school excursion, but on a Sunday? it was all a little wierd, tbh.

Anyway, I left Shek O and travelled back to Kowloon, and spent the late afternoon wandering the flower market (really big business leading up to the New Year), and the bird market (fascinating place, but it's a rebuilt version of the original thing, which was knocked down to make way for a train line, so it's not really what it once was).

Well, that's all from me this evening, hope everythings going well over there, and with any luck, I'll be back tomorrow to report on my day on the South side of Hong Kong island.

Day Four:

Well, you all know the plan for today - I was gonna go to Macau - I got up in the morning, got dressed in my Macau best and made my way to the ferry terminal - only to discover that ferry tickets were twice what I was expecting to pay (Note to Lonely Planet - return fare prices would be nice - I don't think many of your readers are planning to go to Macau AND NEVER COME BACK!)...... So yes. Basically, it was gonna cost me something like HK$300 (50 Australian buck) just to get there and back - So I decided to leave Macau until a later date, when I know how much money I have, and whether I want to lay down 50 bucks for a boat ride. So I went and chilled out on Kowloon Park while I got my thoughts together.

The revised plan was to use today to do the New Territories, the northern part of Hong Kong which is a combination of forest and wierd, highrise 'New Towns'. Now, I call these New Towns wierd 'cos they're total high rise - forests of 30-40 story apartment blocks - but they're really Hong Kong's version of suburbs - they don't feel like cities, but they're built like cities.

Anyway, just outside of one of these New Towns, Sha Tin, there's a place called the Ten Thousand Buddahs monastery. So I'm walking up to this monastery, when I see these Golden statues - and I keep walking ,and there's more and more and more of them! hundreds of them, lining the path right from the bottom of the hill up to the monastery - My guide book tells me that they're boddhisatva - kinda like buddhist saints (hope I don't get any angry mail from buddhists for mis-representing their religion :p), but some of them are pretty whacky looking - I've got some cool pictures of the most interesting ones. Anyway, on reaching the top, I went into the main pavilion and sure enough, thousands and thousands of buddahs (and not all the same either, they're mostly the same size, but in subtly different poses) - Apparently the grand total is in fact 12,800 buddahs - a figure which I'm not about to contest - and the effect is amazing. Additionally, there's the body of a prominent buddhist, embalmed and encased in gold - fairly freaky thinking of the fact that there's a dead guy inside that statue over there. Again, no picture from inside the pavilion - people were gettin' their prayer on, and I didn't want to mess with that.

Coming back down from the 12,800 buddahs, I decided to take a side-trip to Sai Kung - and what an excellent detour it was! a 45 minute bus trip brought me to this seaside fishing/tourism town (but not the homogenised, overexposed, boring type of tourism - more like a seaside escape destination). And boy is it a cool place - all of the seafood (I almost wrote 'fish', but that would be ignoring the prawns, lobsters, shellfish, stingrays (yes, stingrays) and sea creatures I'd never seen in my life) is so fresh - these little boats, tubs full of water and live sea creatures, sit off the side of the dock and literally sell it right out of the boat - all of the restaurants are also seafood shops, and they keep rows and rows of tubs of live animals out front for you to see. This is seafood central. Which attracts those now familiar birds of prey, which I had a great time photographing. So, after wandering along the docks of Sai Kung for a while, I headed back by bus and then train to the big city.

All in all, I'm not disappointed I missed out on Macau for today - I had a great time getting away from the hustle and bustle for the day.

Alright, I'm finally up to date!
And I just noticed that really, these posts are obscenely long - I'm really just spewing things out from my head, trying to get everything down, and not really checking or editing at all - I wanna get as many of my thoughts down as possible (for when I'm can't remember them anymore, so, like, 2 days from now :p), but I hope that these are coming out somewhat legible.

Day Three:
Up and down and back again - and down again.
Well, Friday the 2nd of was certainly my busiest day so far - I did a huge amount of walking, and saw a whole of of incredible things.
My aim for the day was to go up to the Peak, but I wanted to be there around sunset, so I had plenty of tiem to explore. My day started with a walk from my hostel down to the ferry at Tsim Sha Tsui - about a half an hour's trip down Nathan road, but it's never boring. I grabbed some breakfast on the way down, and stopped in Kowloon park to eat - lots of tai chi and old people on their morning walks, it's a really nice bit of peace and quiet in the middle of everything. I took the ferry across the harbour (it's a much more scenic (and cheaper!)option than the MTR, which runs underneath the harbour. My first stop on the island was The Hong Kong Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition Gallery - I know, fascinating stuff (I was the only person there). What can I say, I'm a planning and infrastructure nerd :p Actually, I found it really interesting, and the 18 metre long model of the city was incredible.
Having gotten a bird's eye view of the city, I was ready for the real thing - but it was only early afternoon, so I decided to take a wander through the streets and lanes behind Central district. I walked up to St John's church, which is a beautiful anglican colonial joint, then headed to expat central, Lan Kwai Fong. From there, it was just a short hop to the mid levels escalators.

Now, I'm gonna have to explain the Mid-levels escalators a bit. So Hong Kong Island is split in two by a big 'ole set of hills - think the Dandenongs (similar height), but steeper. Anyway, The bulk of Hong Kong's businesses, as well as a lots of apartments, shops etc etc are on the North side of the islad - which means there jammed pretty hard up against the hill - again, imagine if you moved Melbourne's CBD to Ferntree Gully to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Given this situation, over the years, apartments have started to creep up the side of the mountain. These are huge buildings, with hundreds of residents each, and they cost a -bundle-. But it's a real bummer to have to walk up a steep-ass hill just to get home after work. So they built escalators - a whole system of them, linked by covered walkways and protected from to elements, and travelling all the way from Central district on the harbour, about half way up the hill. This is a -long- set of elevators - it took me 15 minutes to get from the very bottom to the very top of them - but it's a damn sight better than walking.

On reaching the top of the escalators, I proceed on foot, winding my way back down the hill. I came upon the zoo, but I didn't stay for long - it's not much fun (or very good for the conscience) staring at monkeys in empty metal cages - Hayley would've been horrified. I moved on to Man Mo temple (which I had visited once before - in a video game, though they got it all wrong in real life :P), which is an amazing place - dedicated to the Taoist civil and martial gods (Man and Mo), hundreds of people go there to burn incense, leave offerings of oranges (apparently, HK has the world's highest orange consumption per capita - maybe because they're giving them all away to the gods :p) and hit bells (I'm really terribly poorly versed on Chinese religious traditions - it was all quite confusing to me) In addition, dozens and dozens of incense coils are hung from the roof, and slowly burn around in a spiral, giving the whole place and incredible smell. There were a few tourists there, and some had there cameras out and were snapping away - which I think is a fairly rude thing to do, to be honest - my general rule is, if people are prayin', put the camera away. So no photos from inside Man Mo - but it's an incredible place.

On leaving the Man Mo temple, I went back down to the bottom of the Mid-level escalators, so I could do it the whole way through (I had hopped on part way up before) - in addition, it was getting late in the afternoon, so I wanted to head up towards the peak. I decided not to take the Peak Tram up (psh, that's for tourists :p), and instead walk up the old peak road from the top of the escalators. It's a heck of a walk to the top - the old peak road winds around and up - but I've cut my teeth on the hills at home, and I managed just fine. The view from the peak, of course, is amazing - looking out over the whole of the the city, the island from East to West, then out to Kowloon as well (If you can see through the haze) - my camera (and my new lens!) were put to good use. But as well as having an amazing view, the observatory at the peak is a total tourist trap - plus, it's not the highest point on Victoria peak (although it does have the best views), anyway, I walked up to the real Victoria Peak, highest point on the island, and wandered the governer's gardens, site of the Governer's residence before the Japanese burnt it to the ground in World War 2. On my way back down, I was afforded more spectacular views, this time as I rode down on the Bus from the peak to Central. I hopped on the ferry back to Kowloon, and made it just in time to see the mind blowingly incredible light show - The Symphony of Lights, where the Harbour's tallest buildings all participate in the world's largest light show.

And last of all for Friday the 2nd - I had a triumph! I moved up the food chain, from supermarkets and convenience stores to fast food - now if I can just conquer the sit down places, I'll be happy :P

Day two: Adventures in tall places!

Alright, I know, I'm a whole day behind in updating this thing (yesterday's blog at 11PM), but I only just found a decent internet cafe to replace the crappy connection in my hostel. (BTW, I love the fact that, in this city, everything is open so late. It suits my style to have shops open 'til 10PM or later every night).
So I had decided that Thursday would be the day that I endeavoured to get up inside as many of HK's tall buildings as I possibly could. After talking to a lady at the tourism bureau the day before, I discovered there were three such buildings:

2 IFC - Hong Kong's tallest at over 400 metres, 2 IFC is a relatively new building (built in 2002 from memory). Befitting its status, it was also the strictest place to get into. The tourism lady had told me that there was a library of some sort on the 55th floor, but nothing else. When I walked in, a security man asked me where I was headed, and I told him everything I knew "I'm going to the library on the 55th floor". Anyway, that seemed to be enough, as he directed me to a lady at a desk who took a look at my passport and printed me up a visitors pass.
On arrival at floor 55, I discovered that the library was that of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and that there was an exhibit on money up there. So I browsed the exhibit (preeeety boring) and took some photos of the view (preeeety amazing), then headed back down.

My next target was the 43rd floor of the iconic Bank of China building, which I had been told was publically accessible. taking the tram (which is quite a throwback in a city of super subways and trains, but a nice leisurly ride and a bargain at 2 HK dollars per trip), I arrived at the incredible building (look up some pictures of it, you'll see what I mean), waltzed right in, walked up to the elevators and took the express to the 43rd floor. Turns out it's a sky lobby, where you can transfer to an elevator for the upper floors, but the guy at the desk seemed to be quite used to tourists. A bunch of snaps later, I went back down and took the subway to Wan Chai, where my final target for the day was.

When I arrived in Wan Chai, I paid a quick visit to the Wan Chai computer market (another one of these shopping centres with dozens of tiny stores packed into a small space). I saw the camera lens I had been planning to buy while I was out here, and found that I could get it for significantly less than anything I could find in Australia (with a HK warranty, of course, but I was sure to check that everything was in working order before buying) - So I got a quote of HK$1350 from one store, and was just gonna go withdraw some cash to get it - then I dropped by another place, and the guy was quoted me 1350, so I thanked him and was about to leave we he said "You paying cash?". "Maybe" I replied. "1250". So I went and took out the money, but when I got back, the guy who had offered me 1250 had gone cold - 1280. Oh well - I tried to talk him back to 1250, but 1280 was as good as I was gonna get - and I was happy, I woulda paid 1350 for it :P My first haggling experience.

Anyway, I proceeded to Central Plaza, my last tall building for the day, and made my way up with new lens in hand. Central's views are probably better than the other2 buildings, just because it's 360 degrees around a sky lobby, rather than the limited angles of 2IFC and BOC - but at 46 floors up, it's lower than 2IFC, and the building isn't as nice as Bank Of China. Either way, I snagged some nice shots and came back down to the ground

Next, I went back to Victoria Park before visiting the library and writing yesterday's blog. On the way out, I spotted a congregation of birds which I've been seeing a bunch since I arrived in HK - some kind of brid of prey, maybe a Falcon or something - I got a few photos, so the bird experts can debate that when I get home. Either way, I suspect that there's such a large population of them because a city like Hong Kong provides a perfect environment - lots of thermals, lots of food and plenty of places to nest.

On returning to Kowloon, I grabbed some dinner (still from 7-11, I'm afraid - I wasn't up to trying a restaurant or fast food joint just yet) and headed north to Sham Shi Po, where I'd read of an excellent computer market - again, one of these incredibly dense warrens of tiny shops - I also visited the Dragon Mall - Did I mention that these people know how to do a shopping centre? 9 stories, big atrium down the middle, ice skating on the 8th floor, video arcade and rollercoaster (yes, a rollercoaster, which twisted through the ice rink and above the 9 story drop, though it wasn't running when I was there) on the 9th floor. Then I made my way back to my hostel, and watched some cantonese TV (still don't understand it) before going to bed.

Alright, well there's day 2 - I know, I'm still a day behind, but I'll endeavour to get back up to speed - though I'm not sure when, as I'm off to Macau tomorrow.

See y'all later,

Jono

Well, here I am, finally in Hong Kong. The last couple of days have been an amazing experience, I'll try to outline some of the thing I've done since I arrived.

The flight out was good, I chose to take a window seat, though I'm not sure why - it was dark the whole of the time I was there, and I was sitting next to 2 guys who slept through most of the flight. That said, I got quite a lot of sleep, which was good considering the huge day I had before me.
Chek Lap Kok airport in Hong Kong is quite a long way out from the city itself, and as we flew in at 6AM, I saw these lights hovering in the air on one side of the plane. By the time I got out to the bus, it was a little lighter, at I could see that those lights were in fact on top of some massive, steep hills. And that next to these huge hills were enourmous blocks of flats. Imagine, for example, that someone took all the tall apartments that you find in Melbourne, then plonked them down in Ferntree Gully. Except imagine that everything is stretched to twice its height. That's kinda what housing in Hong Kong is like.
After sucessfully negotiating the airport bus and finding my way to my hostel (very clean, nice, small rooms), I decided to walk from Mong Kok to the tip of Kowloon (for those of you not in the know, Kowloon is a Peninsula just across the harbour from the island of Hong Kong). It took me half an hour or so to make the 3km walk through the world's most densely populated area, though the time of morning (around 7:30) meant that things weren't to busy. Once at Tsim Sha Tsui, at the bottom of the peninsula, I took the famous Star Ferry across the Hong Kong island, with the intention of exploring/going to a tourist information bureau. I headed toward The Center, a skyscraper in eastern Hong Kong, where my guidebook said the tourism bureau was. Turns out it had moved, and was now in a Subway station on the Eastern end of the island, in Causeway Bay. Oh well, it gave me my first chance to take the (incredibly cheap and efficient) MTR (mass transit railway). So I went to the tourism place, got some good info for my travels today (more on that later) and chilled out in Victoria Park, where I walked on a pebble path (stones laid into concrete that you walk on in your socks for a kinda foot massage thing - mostly old people from what I saw, all it did to my feet was make them slightly uncomfortable) and watched cats (There must be thousands of cats living in Hong Kong - you shouldn't touch them. 'cos of the danger of diseases, but I think that the government sets them free just to make the city a cuter place :P). Returning to Mong Kok (the of Kowloon area where I'm staying), I booked into my hostel, then went for a wonder. The streets of this city are amazing. I said before how incredibly dense Kowloon is, well this density comes from the absolute forest of 20-40 story highrise apartments (of all ages, with buildings from the 50s right through to now, usually right next to each other), and it results in the most amazing shopping you could ever imagine - I went into shopping centres with more than 10 stories, including one, Langham place, with an atrium that's 13 stories high. I went into buildings that sould appear to to be normal residential highrises until you realise that the first 4 floors are taken up by dozens and dozens of stores that sell mobile phones and other electronics (and none of those electronics stores are more than 2*2 metres square). You begin to see different commerical 'districts' - like we have place in Melbourne where camera stores or jewellers are concentrated - except in Kowloon it's more like 'the model toy district' or 'the goldfish district' (I'm serious - there's a street which is just wall-to-wall live fish in clear plastic bags full of water) In the evening, I got lost looking for a supermarket and went back home to bed.